What Tulio Serafin said that impressed me was: 'When one wants to find a gesture, when you want to find how to act on stage, all you have to do is listen to the music. The composer has already seen to that.' #MariaCallas

If the last act is not superior to all the rest, well, you might as well not sing it. #MariaCallas

They have taught me, and life has taught me that the last act is the most important, because, no matter how much and how well you've sung on the very few one or two or three to four first acts. #MariaCallas

When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point. #MariaCallas

We serve this unique art – the music most of all. It takes a lot of worry and a lot of anguish. It was left to us as a heritage and we must carry it on against all odds – even at our own health’s cost. #MariaCallas

You are born an artist or you are not. And you stay an artist, dear, even if your voice is less of a fireworks. The artist is always there. #MariaCallas

In the theater, you can get away with a very large, very grand phrase. For the microphone, you have to tone it down. It's the same as making a film, your gestures will be seen in close-up, so they cannot be exaggerated as they would be in a theater. #MariaCallas

In other words, sing exactly as it's written, nothing more, nothing less, which is the phrase that I call straight jacketing, faster infinitely strictly how the composer wrote it. #MariaCallas

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house. #MariaCallas

Only when I was singing did I feel loved. #MariaCallas

I don't know what happens to me on stage. Something else seems to take over. #MariaCallas

We serve this unique art – the music most of all. It takes a lot of worry and a lot of anguish. It was left to us as a heritage and we must carry it on against all odds – even at our own health’s cost. #MariaCallas

When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I'm slipping. #MariaCallas

The public is a monster and that is why I am not eager to return to the stage. #MariaCallas

ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours. #MariaCallas

I don't need the money, dear. I work for art. #MariaCallas

This is what we learn from old people. What I learned from old Serafin to always prepare a phrase to always dig deeper into the what the composer wanted and how he felt and how he used to struggle on one phrase to to show the horror or the love or the poetry. #MariaCallas

In the theater, you can get away with a very large, very grand phrase. For the microphone, you have to tone it down. It's the same as making a film, your gestures will be seen in close-up, so they cannot be exaggerated as they would be in a theater. #MariaCallas

There must be a law against forcing children to perform at an early age. Children should have a wonderful childhood. They should not be given too much responsibility. #MariaCallas

Only when I was singing did I feel loved. #MariaCallas